Yes indeed another gardening blog…….a Designer's Perspective.

Tag Archives: Georgia O’Keeffe

A year ago, in honour of Georgia O’Keeffe’s 125th birthday, I published a post dedicated to ‘the flower’ – a lightheartedrompthrough the sex life of a plant. While Georgia herself never admitted to deliberately eroticizing flowers, it has oft been assumed that her floral paintings allude to human external sex organs. However, her aim was simply to make manifest that which is often taken for granted – in this case the collection of details that comprise a flower. There is an undeniable, intrinsic sensuality to a plant’s reproductive parts; lush velvety petals, silky filaments and fuzzy anthers, tubular style and bulbous stigma – is it any surprise then that this would be apparent in Georgia’s work? She just painted what she saw.

If I could paint I would paint like Georgia. But alas painting is not my forte – I can slap paint on a wall if necessary, and as a child I could stick my chubby little hands in a jar of paint, smear it all over a piece of paper and say “Look Mommy, art!”, but that’s the extent of my painting ability. However, I do believe that it is ‘delighting in the details’ that fuels my design work, and more recently, my (attempted) photography. Years ago I attended a garden photography workshop with renowned garden photographer, AllanMandell. One of the first things he taught was that everything is significant to the camera – details the eye overlooks, a photograph exposes. At the time, he was referring to unwanted details – a garden hose, gum wrapper, spent bloom or dead leaf, that mar our photographic images, but it obviously refers to the beautiful, interesting details as well.

So today, as another tribute to Ms. O’Keeffe, I offer you my own ‘floral paintings’. Not real paintings of course, but digital paintings. If you’re familiar with Photoshop, you know that it includes various paintbrush tools that allow one to alter the appearance of a photo with a series of ‘brushstrokes’ (mouse strokes?), so it resembles a painting – maybe a watercolour, or oil, or pastel, charcoal, ink, wax crayon etc.. I’ve chosen to leave some areas of the photos untouched in order to accentuate certain details – stamens or carpels, maybe a ruffle or petal edge, a droplet of water, or even an entire blossom. The result is a bit of a hybrid but my hope is that you too may ‘delight in the details’.

Paeonia tenuifolia. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Paeonia ‘Unknown Soldier’. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Iris germanica. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Malus ‘Kelsey’. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Prunus triloba multiplex. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Hemerocallis ‘Chicago Antique Tapestry’. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Lamprocapnos spectabilis. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Rosa ‘Morden Sunrise’. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Iris sibirica ‘Roanoke’s Choice’. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Perusing this morning’s edition of Swerve magazine, I discovered an article exploring the legitimacy of digitally produced art – this is timely, I thought. Calgary freelance journalist and travel blogger Kim Gray poses the question, “Is digital art real art?” and discovers there’s more support for this ‘art form’ than one might gather. The consensus it seems, is that digitally created art does have validity – it is indeed a creative process, but with a different medium and using different tools. Traditional art on the other hand is seen as perhaps having more ‘soul’ since it involves actually getting one’s hands dirty.

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“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else.” ~ Georgia O’Keeffe ~

When Georgia O’Keeffe painted the stunning floral portraits for which she was famous, she did so with the intent of expressing what she felt when looking at a flower, portraying it as she experienced it – layered, luxuriant, larger-than-life. She assigned as much significance to the details as to the whole, often painting less than the whole flower and using the outer edges merely to frame its inner beauty.

I’m a huge fan of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work – for so many reasons. The designer in me is completely enamoured by her attention to detail, creating texture so rich one can almost feel it. The gardener in me………well what gardener doesn’t love to look at big beautiful flower pictures? And as a horticulturist, I find her sensuous presentation of every ruffle and ridge, petal, sepal and stamen, to be a breathtaking study in flower anatomy. If one looks at these paintings from this botanical vantage point, a whole new appreciation of both painter and subject ensues.

The Birds and the Bees

I think to truly appreciate a flower one must first understand its role. A flower exists, not for the purpose of our enjoyment (much as we gardeners would like to think), but rather for the purpose of reproduction. Their brightly coloured parts aren’t intended to garner the oohs and aahs of our neighbours and friends, but to attract pollinators, like birds, bees and butterflies.

“Let me tell you ‘bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees and the moon up above and the thing called love”.

We all know those infamous Herb Newman lyrics, and what often follows is………the Talk. You know the talk of which I speak – the one your parents or grandparents, or teachers, had with you just as you were approaching puberty. Well here it is again – sort of.

Prepare yourself – I have graphic images.

Cross section of a ‘perfect’ flower, meaning it has both stamens (male) and carpels (female). Not all flowers are perfect – some plants have separate male and female flowers. In some cases, the entire plant is either male or female – these plants are referred to as dioecious.

So it goes something like this: A bee or other pollinator enters the interior of a flower in search of nectar and pollen. In the process of collecting pollen it inadvertently brushes against the stigma, thereby depositing the pollen which contains the sperm. A pollen tube then forms, growing down the style and transporting the sperm to the ovary where the ovules reside. The male sperm joins with the female ovule and voila, fertilization! Fruit and/or seeds then develop from the fertilized egg and these are dispersed by wind, rain, birds, etc., eventually settling into the soil where the seeds germinate. Plant grows, plant produces flowers, bees pollinate………..yadda yadda yadda. Did ya get all that?

Pretty in Pink – this pink hollyhock presents her best ‘come hither’ look, hoping to entice pollinators. The brighter pink veins add to her allure and serve to guide visitors in. Work it girl! Photo: Cathy Gaviller

Of course the bees have no idea that they’re participating in the plant’s sex life – they’re just there for the pollen. But they are vital to this courtship dance. In fact flowers get all dressed up in their most colourful outfits and put on their finest perfume to impress these pollinators – or any pollinator for that matter. Oh those fickle flowers.

Ah yes – success. Now that is one amorous bee! Photo: Cathy Gaviller

Come A Little Bit Closer Now

If we zoom in a little closer to have a really good look at the inner workings of these remarkable reproductive machines, you’ll see that the very heart of a flower is indeed a thing of beauty and something to be celebrated – sketched, painted or photographed. This was Georgia’s gift to the world – she made us really look at a flower.

Plants like the above-pictured daylily have large showy flowers which easily attract pollinators. Other plants, lilacs for example, have many tiny florets each with reproductive capacity. These florets are clustered together to form a large inflorescence which not only increases the chances of being noticed by passing pollinators, but vastly increases the opportunities for pollination. Most of us never really notice these tiny floral entities that make up the larger racemes, umbels and panicles, but they are miniature marvels that merit a closer look.

Inner Space

Zooming in even more we can get a detailed view of the various reproductive parts of a flower. The male parts are the anthers and filaments, collectively called the stamen. Anthers are the pollen producing organs and are often quite pronounced, hence they are usually quite recognizable.

The female parts – stigma, style and ovary, together make up the carpel. Often there are multiple carpels, which are jointly referred to as the pistil. If there is only one carpel, then the terms carpel and pistil can be applied interchangeably. Carpels come in all shapes and sizes. Some have a long tube-shaped style and a bulbous stigma. Others have a bulb-shaped style and fleshy stigma. Sometimes the style appears almost non-existent and the stigma is all that’s visible. While the shape is widely variable, the carpel can usually be recognized by the surface texture of the stigma, which will appear sticky, oily or waxy – this ensures adherence of pollen grains.

The bulbous stigma of Lilium longiflorum is quite large compared to that of the Hemerocallis in the previous image, but both stigma have the characteristic spongy, waxy surface for trapping pollen. Photo: Pat Gaviller

Lilium columbianum has very pronounced carpel and stamens. Here the pollen on the anthers has all but disappeared but grains of it heavily coat the sticky stigma surface. Photo: Pat Gaviller

Outer Space

The outermost layer of a flower is the calyx, which is made up of all the sepals. Just inside the calyx is the corolla which consists of all the petals. Ah yes, the petals – this is why we grow plants that flower right? Generally speaking the petals are the largest, showiest part of the flower (there are exceptions though). Biologically speaking they serve the purpose of surrounding and protecting the flower’s reproductive parts, as well as attracting pollinators with their colourful presentation.

The sepals on the other hand, are usually nondescript, green leaf-like units that surround and enclose the flower in the bud stage, as well as support the petals once they emerge. However, there are a number of plants that have very showy sepals, almost as showy as the petals – Lilium, Hemerocallis, Iris and Narcissus to name a few.

The petals of Rosa ‘Winnipeg Parks’ are bright and very flashy, whereas the pale gray-green sepals have very little ornamental value. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Daylily sepals, like this Hemerocallis ‘Chicago Antique Tapestry’, are the same colour and texture as the petals, albeit a little smaller. Photo: Sue Gaviller

The sepals of plants in the Iris genus are the downward-curving parts, called ‘falls’, and are every bit as beautiful as the upright petals or ‘standards’. Photo: Sue Gaviller

Some Irises have fuzzy caterpillar-like tufts along the midline of the sepals – these are known as ‘beards’. The Iris beard may serve to collect and protect pollen (note its proximity to the stigmatic lip directly above the beard) or it may simply provide a place for pollinators to alight and grasp onto. Photo: Pat Gaviller

Narcissus sp. has 3 petals, 3 almost identical sepals and an additional trumpet-shaped structure known as the corona. Photo: Pat Gaviller

This Bud’s for You

A flower begins as a bud – an unremarkable green protuberance that bears no resemblance to the flower it will eventually become.

Like all of the intersectional hybrids, Paeonia ‘Morning Lilac’ has unique pointy buds. Photo: Sue Gaviller

I find flower buds to be as rewarding as the blooms, more so maybe. A bud is the promise of a flower and we experience it with all the anticipation of a bride-to-be. I doubt if I’m the only gardener who has spent countless hours peering into the depth of daylily foliage, gently separating the grassy blades looking for emerging bloomscapes. Or palpating Iris fans, feeling for the swellings of blooms-to-be. Or closely examining lilac buds to determine which will be leaves and which will be gorgeous fragrant blossoms.

I count the buds to see how many blooms I’ll be blessed with this year. I observe them daily, gauging their progress, watching them swell and elongate, slowly taking on a hint of colour. I daresay by the time my flowering plants actually bloom, I’ve spent so much time anticipating it that the experience is almost anticlimactic. Almost.

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